The Danger of “Just Meditate!” – Ep19

June 4, 2015 Robert Thurman

Professor Thurman discusses the potential dangers of cultivating an empty mind without also developing proper understanding of what emptiness is. Just meditating with our default understanding of reality can temporarily dampen our worries, but it won’t completely overcome them. The danger is that we’ll think we’re already enlightened, and lose the motivation to completely transform our whole experience into a Buddhaverse.

This episode is an extract from a lecture given at Jewel Heart in New York City, May 7, 2015, as part of a lecture series called “Vajrayana and Emptiness.”

The Brilliant Illumination of the Lamp of the Five Stages (Rim lnga rab tu gsal ba’i sgron me) is Tsong Khapa’s most important commentary on the perfection stage practices of the Esoteric Community (Guhyasamāja), the …